Bogumil Terminski Environmentally-Induced Displacement ... - Cedem

IntroductionThe aim of the presented paper is to demonstrate environmentally-induced displacement as anincreasingly important category of population movement that represents a new set ofchallenges to the international community and to public international law as well 1 . There arethree basic objectives that this work intends to achieve: 1) to argue in favour of distinguishingenvironmentally-induced displacement from the broader category of migratory movementsand thereby making it a fully autonomous concept within the existing taxonomies, 2) toillustrate the diversity and inconsistency of environmentally displaced people (EDPs)theoretical concept, 3) to provide references to earlier theoretical achievements in thisparticular field of study. For these purposes, the paper tries to capture both the phenomenon ofenvironmental displacement itself, and the problems of people affected by its consequences.Apart from theoretical considerations, it also examines which main factors force people toabandon their homes. Both long-term environmental hazards and short-lived natural disastersare investigated here, and it is shown how they entail significant implications for thedynamics of population mobility.The social consequences of the environmental processes under scrutiny are one of the greatestchallenges the international community will face in the coming years. Today, the effects oflong-standing environmental changes seem obvious to many citizens of our planet.Desertification, increasing soil salinity, wasteful deforestation, and rising sea levels are just afew of the issues discussed below which influence everyday life for at least two hundredmillion people worldwide.A particularly important problem is the lack of access to safe drinking water. According toWHO estimates, over 1,3 billion inhabitants of our globe currently do not have access topotable water. More than 2,2 million people in developing countries (most of them children)die each year from diseases associated with water shortage, poor hygiene and inadequatesanitation. According to the United Nations Development Report (2006) nearly half of the1The author wishes to thank Marcin Zgiep and Jennifer Sheppard for their invaluable assistance andcomments.